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Gravel Color

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It's me again ! I was just looking at the PETSMART website, checking out their anniversary sale. I was reading the reveiws on some gravel, and one of them said that the black color faded after about 7 months. Is this common ?
Since I'm leaning to this color, is there a brand that doesn't fade ? I want as dark as I can get. I want to cover the bottom with black gravel, but, I don't want it to be level. I want to make different sized mounds. Then I want to put in black sand to fill in the low spots, hopefully giving an appearance of rock piles for some of my decor. I'm thinking that the sand might make little avenues around the tank, for bottom-dwellers that prefer sand to gravel, and still have gravel for fish that want gravel. It looks good in my mind, but am I headed for disaster from the start ?

If you want to mix substrates, you're going to have to use containers or channels to prevent drifting/mixing. Maintenance, critters rooting around, all will end up mixing your substrates til you have an even mix throughout your tank, after a period of time...

+ to sheamurai. To keep your tank clean of fish poo you'll need to vacuum the gravel regularly with a siphon hose which is guaranteed to rearrange your mounds of gravel and channels of sand. You might want to consider using actual stones/rocks for your mounds then fill in around them with black sand or gravel.